Online spending reached $25.5 billion during that period, down 3 percent versus
the corresponding shopping days in 2007.

"The 2008 online holiday shopping season has declined 3 percent versus year ago,
falling behind our expectation of flat sales this year," said comScore chairman
Gian Fulgoni. "This marks the first time we?ve seen negative growth rates for the
holiday season since we began tracking e-commerce in 2001. The combination of
having five fewer shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas and the severe
economic headwinds faced by consumers has made this a really tough season for
retailers, both offline and online."

"The combination of having five fewer shopping days between Thanksgiving and
Christmas and the severe economic headwinds faced by consumers has made this a
really tough season for retailers, both offline and online."

The growth rate for Q4 2008 to date compared to the same period a year ago will
end up looking marginally worse than the holiday season results, ComScore said.
For the period of October 1 ? December 28 compared to the same calendar days in
2008, e-commerce spending is down 4 percent to 36.8 billion. The fourth quarter
of 2008 will also mark the first full quarter to record a negative growth rate
since comScore began tracking e-commerce.

Despite soft online sales this holiday season, consumers continued to shop online
for the best deals. In the period of December 1-24 vs. the corresponding shopping
days last year, several top retailers achieved growth in visitation to their
sites. eBay remained the most visited retail site with 85.4 million visitors but
saw a slight decline of 4 percent in visitors, while three of the top five most
visited sites recorded gains. Amazon Sites grew 7 percent to 76.2 million
visitors, followed by Wal-Mart (up 4 percent to 51.5 million visitors), Target
(down 1 percent to 46.8 million visitors) and Apple Inc. (up 19 percent to 35
million visitors).